Reality Ensues/Surprisingly Realistic Outcome cleanup

I thought that's what this trope was retooled to be.

After we've done the MCU movies, Fox's X-Men films... well, was originally going to do the DC films next, but I'll just drop a couple of quickies right on the main page, SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome.Live Action Films.

They're on the work pages too, but... permission to terminate these shoehorns?

• The Terminator
  • Kyle Reese is all set to take on a bunch of cops before Sarah Connor talks him out of it. Being a Terminator-hunting badass doesn't shield him from reality. — If he "never" get to beat up all the cops, then does "reality" still ensued?
  • The series rule on time travel is explained as it being difficult to send a living person back because it's harder to send living beings compared to a synthetic lifeform. As a result, while the Terminator is able to immediately act after getting sent to the past, Reese is near death when he first arrives in the past, and requires time to heal from the process. — I dunno, after getting back on his feet Kyle beats up a homeless man twice his size rather easily. Also this is just Plot Happens.
  • At the end Reese takes on the Terminator with a metal bar. Damaged or not, it's still a near indestructible metal robot and makes him pay for it. When he sticks a bomb on it he jumps down some stairs and it still gets him killed. Turns out being six feet from a bomb isn't much better than 2. — Terminator > Human is a franchise norm, NOTHING surprisingly subverted. At all. Also the second part is just a Heroic Sacrifice (pulled by Chronically Killed Actor Michael Biehn, no less!...) that happens in SO MANY other films. Shoehorn.
  • When the Terminator kills two different Sarah Connors, Sarah's roommate and her roommate's boyfriend, and attack Sarah at a nightclub, the police take it very seriously. They question both Sarah and Kyle about what's going on, not believing Kyle's story about the robot-ruled future, and don't let the Terminator see Sarah when it claims to be a friend of hers. They even put up a good fight when the Terminator attacks, but sadly the Terminator is a nigh-indestructible killbot and wipes them all out. — The police not believing in Time Travel mumbo-jumbo and the future war thing is Cassandra Truth, not reality. And the Terminator giving the cops a Curb-Stomp Battle... well, its Curb-Stomp Battle with ZILCH to do with reality. This franchise is the Trope Codifier for Implacable Man, you know.
  • In reality, no gun store would keep live ammo within a customer's reach for obvious reasons even if one hasn't seen the film and knows the gun shop owner dies by way of Ballistic Discount. Any other gun dealer would have kept live ammo in a secure location, and would pull their own sidearms on anyone who grabbed a box of ammo and had a live weapon in their hands at the same time. Not that a mere sidearm would have any hope of intimidating, much less stopping the Terminator, of course. — Plot says the Terminator needs some weapons, and he's going to get those weapons and ammo no matter what. Again, Plot Happening misuse.
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
  • The police haven't forgotten what happened at the West Highland police station, so when they discover that someone matching his appearance has broken into Cyberdyne they bring a much bigger SWAT team. They still don't succeed, but points for trying. — Sequel Escalation in an action movie, calling it "Surprisingly Realistic" seems a bit of a stretch.

• Towards the end of this scene, the T-800 uses a tear gas grenade launcher to shoot the SWAT members. The canisters may not explode (and because the SWAT team were wearing gas masks they wouldn't have been affected by the tear gas), but getting shot point-blank by a 40mm metal canister in the chest, even with body armor on knocks them to the floor and leaves them groaning in pain. — Right. YOU try not groaning in pain after getting hit by a grenade fired by a ranged projectile launcher. This is Sitting on Chairs.
• In between Terminator 1 and Terminator 2, Sarah Connor is taken into a mental hospital. Turns out that even if it's true, most people are going to believe you're mentally ill if you insist that you've been hunted down by a robot from the future. — This is Wrongfully Committed, NOT Reality Ensues.

EDIT: Turns out the work page for T2 have a few extra items...

• John, giddy at having just discovered he has his own pet terminator, unleashes the T-800 on two guys nearby. The T-800 promptly tries to murder one of them. — He's called a "Terminator" for a reason. Plot Happens.
  John: Jesus, you were gonna kill that guy!
  T-800: Of course, I'm a terminator.
• The T-1000 can move through metal bars like they're nothing, but anything that isn't a part of him (such as a gun) will get stuck, as demonstrated with a revolutionary effects sequence during the escape from Pescadero. — And then Robert Patrick unstucks his gun four seconds later by tilting his hands a little. Plot happens.'
• Despite preparing herself physically for when Judgement Day happens, Sarah is still not mentally prepared for meeting a Terminator up-close. During her escape when she encounters the T-800, she immediately reverts to screaming and running away. — You try NOT running and screaming from a Killer Robot who murdered 17 people in one night and out to get you. "Reality", like really? Shoehorn.

Edited by RobertTYL on Nov 11th 2021 at 10:12:52 PM

The whole “plot happens” thing with this trope confuses me. Please elaborate.

I disagree with these removals from Webcomic.Paranatural:

• Reality Ensues: The comic makes frequent use of this for humor's sake. In other words, Rule of Cool is sometimes trumped by Rule of Funny.
  • Brought up by Max when Johnny threatens him:
    Johnny: Here's a headline fer that news chick: "Nerd Drug Into Alley, Reveals Secrets, Innards"
    Max: NOT A CHANCE!! The past tense of "drag" is "dragged" and the editor will probably catch that, so—
  • Spender talks to the club dramatically while facing the window, but they can't hear him very well because he's facing away from them.
  • Spender makes a dramatic appearance, applauding while praising Isabel, but she calls out that she can't understand him when he's clapping at the same time.
  • Spender jumps from a roof to the ground, then immediately falls over because a landing from that height is rough on the ankles.
  • Isaac tries to use an air blast while dangling from the ground, but it ends up pushing him instead of who he was aiming at.
  • Ed tries to skate on a locker door, but skids to a stop because it doesn't have wheels.

and the pothole removals from:

• Casual High Drop: Attempted by Spender here. He tries to look cool by jumping off the roof and landing on the lawn, but immediately falls over saying "ow, jesus".
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Spender makes a dramatic rooftop appearance from the shadows, applauding while praising Isabel, but she calls out that she can't understand him when he's clapping at the same time.

(trope name aside)

Almost all of these are subversions of spectacle/action scene logic with reality logic for the purpose of comedy. The headline one is the only one I'm unsure of.

Also, an edit reason of "Duplicate example" was given (presumably because a couple were listed under other tropes too), but scenes can fit multiple tropes.

Here are the scenes in question:

• "here's a headline"
• talking while facing the window. Note that this scene was approved by this thread as an example of the trope to illustrate SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome.Webcomics, where it is the page image.
• the next two bullet points are from this page
• air blast: last panel + first panel. aversion of Law of Inverse Recoil, a trope common enough that its page bars straight examples
• failing to skate on a locker door. note that this comes right after a bit following action scene logic: using the locker door to skate down a railing, and then ollieing off the railing and sticking the landing.

If you think it can fit multiple examples, feel free to do so. But just use... another trope instead of Reality Ensues, k?

What I'm saying is, if it fits the definition of SRO, then use that one, but just don't pothole Reality Ensues back. Yeah, that one

Edited by RobertTYL on Nov 12th 2021 at 1:36:32 AM

Why use another trope instead of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome if SRO fits? Do you think any of the above is misuse of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome? If so: why?

Okay, done.

Edited by Twiddler on Nov 11th 2021 at 10:00:26 AM

"Work that normally runs on fictional/toon logic momentarily becomes realistic for comedy" is Surprisingly Realistic Outcome.

Oop, that was a statement for Crossover agreeing with mightymewtron. I don't super mind example deletion if, say, Rob isn't sure if something counts as another trope but is sure it's not SRO. At least it's still in the history and can potentially be moved.

Edited by Tabs on Nov 12th 2021 at 2:43:04 AM

Yeah, I was just confused why they deleted the examples outright instead of moving them to SRO.

Another Dr. Crafty example

• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Pepper, Messi, and Crystelle discuss how their prison is tailor-made for them, along with how effective Mindstein's attack plan was to get them inside it. Messi wonders aloud why their assailant was so successful... But before she finishes speaking, she and her coworkers all realize that nothing stops Mindstein from simply watching their publicly available online show to gather intelligence.
  Crystelle: "Our captors must have carefully planned this attack."
  Pepper: "What're you saying, Crystelle?"
  Crystelle: "They know how to precisely circumvent my clairvoyance, and how to counter Messi's malleable form. Whoever did this must've been watching us for a long time, and planned accordingly."
  Messibelle: "How do they know so much about —"
  (A piano hit plays as everyone silently comes to the same worrying conclusion.)
  Messibelle: "Oh, wait. We have an online show. Heh... right..."

Edited by Libraryseraph on Nov 13th 2021 at 9:32:26 AM

Can I check these Daredevil examples? It's been a little while since I've seen the show, so second opinions would be welcome.

I also have some Firefly examples, but I have a much better recollection of that show, so I more confident that they're misuse.

Recap.Daredevil 2015 S 2 E 9 Seven Minutes In Heaven

• Reality Ensues: When Fisk arrives in prison, most of his assets are seized by the federal government. He's able to get a percentage of holdings secured in offshore banks, enough for him to have a small cushion, and enough to hide Vanessa overseas. To recruit the Valdez brothers, who are Stewart Finney's friends, Fisk arranges for Donovan to have their mother's rent paid out indefinitely. However, this isn't exactly cheap, as Fisk burns through almost all the remaining money he still has, with Donovan warning him that he'll need to be careful lest he start dipping into Vanessa's funds. So his motivation to take over Dutton's ring isn't just about getting rid of a competitor, it's also about getting access to his money.

Recap.Daredevil 2015 S 3 E 12 One Last Shot

• Nadeem may have made the right decision and did what he could to protect his family during the shootout, but Seema is still furious with him for lying to her over and over, and despite Ray's repeated apologies to her, makes it clear that that's not enough, and Ray himself later notes that even if his testimony is successful, his wife still may not come back to him.

• What's more, Blake Tower absolutely refuses to give Nadeem full immunity, no matter how much Matt and Foggy try to push for it, when he was an accessory to multiple murders, insisting that the best offer he'll give is a five-year sentence. Ray actually fully accepts that this is a fair deal and chooses to go through with it.

• Fisk and Vanessa may genuinely love each other, but they have not seen each other in a very long time, and Vanessa had to travel far to get there. As a result, their reunion is rather awkward, and while Vanessa is appreciative of the grand efforts Fisk has gone through to make her feel at home, she's really just tired and wants to go to bed.

Recap.Firefly E 01 Serenity

• Reality Ensues:
  • Dobson takes River hostage and starts making demands. Malcolm just shoots him.
    • This is just a pragmatic hero in a sci-fi wild west frontier show, and entirely in character for him. Mal's had a bad day and isn't playing games any more. It's not a narrative subversion.
  • In a follow-up comic, he turns out to be alive but blinded in the eye where the bullet hit. He concocts a plan to capture and kill the crew of Serenity. This time, Mal finishes the job.
    • Villain comes back for revenge plot. No subversion here. Also, it's breaking the Recap rule of spoiling future work (in spin-off comics), so it shouldn't be on the pilot episode's page anyway even if it did count.
  • Despite Mal and Zoe's desperate attempts to hold their position at all costs, they're undone by the simple strategic fact that The Alliance has air superiority and their own air force isn't coming to bail them out. Like the Confederates in the American Civil War, the Independents are greatly handicapped by their enemy's greater manpower pool and blatant logistical superiority.
    • This is the opening scene of the show, establishing the context of the post-war setting, the importance of the ship's name, and the main character's backstory and emotional baggage. At this point, there's nothing to subvert: it's literally just setting and character introduction.

Series.Firefly:

• Reality Ensues
  • In "The Meesage", Wash tries to lose a pursuing ship by flying into a canyon. Rather than follow him down the ship just flies over it and continues to pursue from above.
    • This may look like an example, but it's misleadingly selective. Wash does fly into the canyon, and Womack's ship does stay above them. However, this allows Wash to lose them by backing the ship into an ice cave (which he couldn't have done if Womack had followed him into the canyon). Womack's ship starts dropping magnetic depth charges to try and bomb them out of hiding. But this gives the heroes the time they need to figure out what's really going on and come up a solution to their predicament. So... Womack not following him into the canyon isn't realistic subversion, it's literally a plot device to enable the rest of the episode to happen in a way that allows them to keep the tension going (by periodically having the sound of a bomb go off, which rattles the Character of the Week into showing his true colours).
  • When Mal walks into a hostage situation in Serenity, he doesn't bother listening to the man's demands and just shoots him before he has a chance to react.
    • This is the "Dobson takes River captive" example above, just with even less context.
  • In "War Stories", Zoe tells Jayne and Wash not to shoot a man Mal is fighting, believing that This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself. Only for Mal, who is desperately trying not to be strangled, to quickly inform them that this is not the case, at which point they blow the guy away.
    • As the entry states, this is a (rather humorous) subversion of the This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself trope. It's got nothing to do with Reality Ensues or SRO.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 14th 2021 at 6:30:47 PM

I think the canyon pursuit example still works (as a Double Subversion?) because of how that initial moment is played.

(transcript from here)

Agree about the rest of the Firefly examples. The war one is setup and the rest are Combat Pragmatist. (Well, the "villain returns for revenge" one doesn't describe combat pragmatism, but Mal does a Double Tap to make sure he's dead this time, which might have been what the example was referring to.)

Should Combat Pragmatist be added to the Reality Ensues disambig?

Does it often get used "in place of" SRO/RE? A lot of tropes can be listed in place of it, but adding them all would make the disambig page long.

Agree with the cuts / replacements, shred as necessary. Good work

Another potential misuse, from The People v. O. J. Simpson. Not going to elaborate examples, but isn't the OJ Simpson trial based on, uh, real life incidents?

If it's based on reality, then Reality Ensues / Surprisingly Realistic Outcome have NO business even existing on the page. Cut?

EDIT: This was added just yesterday, from Once Upon a Time in High School. I never really watched Korean school dramedies, so this isn't my forte, but...

• Reality Ensues: There are a couple of examples that heavily relates to high school youth.
  • Hyun soo, Woo sik, and Eun jo's Love Triangle ends with both men having a fight and neither of them getting the girl, much like anyone who have this kind of situation with a someone or even a friend and refuse to let it go or move on with the love. — Sounds like your everyday school drama with a fight between romantic rivals, that happens in OH SO MANY films. Calling it "reality" sounds like a stretch.
  • All of the fight scenes are messy, reckless, and brutal. There no flashy moves just people grabbing, tackling, punching each other,just like how real fights work especially between high school students. — If it's like "real fights" then its Plot Happens misuse.

Edited by RobertTYL on Nov 15th 2021 at 11:13:58 PM

So I was thinking of adding this to Sunday Night Suicide, and considering how misused the trope is, wanted to run it by here first:

• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Within the Mickey Mouse franchise and Goofy's own cartoons, his frequent bouts of stupidity are primarily used for comedy and never result in anything worse than Amusing Injuries, even with events that should have seriously harmed him at best. In the lore of the mod, Goofy makes another of his clumsy mistakes - that being taking an exit lane instead of an enter lane while driving with Donald = but instead of hilarity ensuing, they get into a car crash that kills them both.

Wait for it…

Edited by Idiosyncratic on Nov 17th 2021 at 4:07:09 AM

The Family Guy subpage of the trope needs serious cleaning up.

Sweet Jesus, 666 posts!...

... or not. Maybe not. Yeah.

That being said, Lo que callamos las mujeres have these, uh, items. Shoehorns anbd Plot Happens aside, the page also have quite a bit of Wall of Text and Signal-to-Noise Train Wreck problems, but nevertheless —

• Reality Ensues: This trope happens regularly, considering the down-to-earth nature of the telenovela. — If this show is "down-to-earth", then can it be considered "Surprisingly Realistic"?
  • At the end of "Somos Todos Iguales", it is mentioned Ernesto is feeling remorse over abusing his family, namely Sergio, but his abuse was too much for them they don't want to do anything with him for a while. Even if you feel remorse over your action, you don't automatically get accepted back into the family for them. — "An abuser doesn't get forgiven by the abused" sounds like Plot Happens. Nothing surprising.
  • In "Balas En Casa", we have many examples:
    • Andrés accidentally wounds Jaime, who is his best friend, thanks to a loose bullet when he wanted that Jaime touched the gun, and is in risk of going to jail. Thankfully Jaime woke up and cleared Andrés name saying it was an accident. In any case Andrés can't go to jail because he's still an underage (he's not even 10) and the lawyer explains that, but he must be subjected to a trial in which his behavior must change. Instead is Ramón the one who goes to jail because he taught Andrés how to use a gun, besides his abuse. Because of course, that's called "minor corruption", if you teach a kid that mistreating and using guns is awesome, you'll end going to jail for teaching said kid that. — I was going to say this is a keep... until I got to the part saying the kid is TEN. Well, no doy, obviously the adult's going to face the consequences. Nothing surprising.
    • Despite Andrés is regretful of hurting Jaime. Jaime's mother mentions that her son is so traumatized for the event and that is the best for him if they simply move out and that Jaime stay and doesn't see Andrés at least for a while, as this is why they're moving out of the city and going to the country to live with Jaime's grandparents for some time. Yeah, despite you're regretful for their actions, you don't earn automatically a forgiveness, you can cause a deep trouble that only time can solve. — Something similar happened in the ending of Spiderman: Homecoming, regarding the Toomes family deciding to move away, which this thread decides is "PLOT" and nothing really surprising.
    • Both Susana and her sister are pretty aware that sending Ramón to jail won't automatically redeem him or make him at least regret his actions, because people doesn't change from one day to other. But Susana is more concerned that at least he can't abuse anyone in jail, because Ramón is a dirty coward who only abuses people weaker than him and that it's highly likely that Ramón meets meaner people that him that will make him beg for mercy and turn him into his "playmate". Obviously if you think that you're the meanest, is because you haven't meet other scumbags worse than you, obviously you don't know what are you bragging about. This is implied to be true when Susana at the end visits her ex-husband Ramón in jail and notices him more submissive and doesn't want to talk how he's treated in jail. Susana realizes that Ramón was likely abused to submission and can't mess with men, because he's a dirty coward. — Sounds like "This Troper giving a review why his favourite Soap Opera is Realistic" and have ZILCH to do with the plot.
  • In "Es Que Nadie Me Hacía Caso", despite atoning for her behaviour, Virgina refuses to accept Itzel back in her life, because Itzel really shattered her trust and attempted to ruin the relationship between her and her boyfriend. Even if Itzel becomes a nice person who decides to turn over a new leaf. Virginia still has to work in forgiving her or not and accepting her back in her life. Again, if you do damage like that and change for the better, you still have to give time to those who were hurt by your actions in the past. — Nothing too surprising.

I'm unfamiliar with the work in question; so... any opinions? Or it's safe to cut?

Here are some examples from the Family Guy subpage that I cut:

• When Peter goes to the Peter-Copter and the Hinden-Peter in "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire", he promptly crashes them into Joe's house, causing substantial damage. Joe lampshades this by asking how Peter can afford those things.^note  A later episode shows that Peter pays for all his shenanigans by robbing banks and killing witnesses.

• "Love, Blactually": Cleveland helps Brian's new girlfriend cheat on him, even though this episode lampshades that Cleveland was in the same situation. Yet Cleveland is spiteful towards Brian about stealing his girlfriend. It takes Quagmire sleeping with Carolyn before Cleveland gets a Jerkass Realization. Not everyone is going to grow from their Hypocrite tendencies. In addition, it proves to be better that Brian didn't consummate their relationship, as Cleveland hints she may have given him an STD.

Stewie Griffin the Untold Story

• Stewie is taken 30 years into the future by his own future self Stu. When they arrive, Stewie is disappointed that everything looks more or less the same, to which Stu replies "Well of course, it's only been thirty years." The commentary lampshades this, claiming that while most movies tend to treat periods only decades into the future as radically different from the present, in the real world, personal technology and sociology might change very drastically (as seen with Future!Stewie's time travel watch) but infrastructure takes much longer to change in any notable way.
• Stewie decides to help Stu lose his virginity and convinces him to date his coworker, Fran, because the two are friends and seemingly have a thing for each other.
  • Since it's Stu's first time, he gets cold feet and the actual experience is rather awkward and short-lived. Since Stewie is the one who taught him how to have sex in the first place, it's even more awkward, as shown by Stewie failing to pronounce "penis" and "vagina" correctly. To drive this point home, a disappointed Fran reminds Stu that he only lasted 8 seconds and spent the next 40 minutes crying.
  • Another thing about sex; there's more to it than just the motions, and even if Stu's coach wasn't a baby, he wasn't going to be a modern-day Zeus who gave Fran the night of her life. You can't really learn all there is to know about sex within a day and go into it expecting to be a master at it. It's even worse when Stewie tells him he lasted longer with Fran than he did with the rehearsal swiss cheese.

• And just to add insult to injury, when Stewie and Stu return to the apartment, they find it in flames since Stu forgot to put out the scented candles.
• W hen Joe manages to tackle a robbery suspect in "Ready, Willing and Disabled" and severs his spine in the process, Peter jokes about the man's resulting paralysis, but Joe casually informs him that the man died from his injuries.
  • At another point, on seeing that Joe is gaining fame due to his achievements despite being disabled, Peter tries to fake disability. He shows Tom Tucker a video of his 'tragic accident', in which a scarecrow wearing his clothes is hit by a car he is driving. Tucker tells Peter he can hardly expect him to believe this as it is obviously a scarecrow and when he pauses the video Peter is clearly driving the car.

I was getting a little suspicious that the examples on the FG page fit more with This Is Reality than SRO/RE. I'd planned to post it, but never got around to it.

A majority of those examples fit under that trope. Boy this trope needs some serious cleaning up.

I have a question; do I have to check here before I delete entries, or if I see one I know doesn't count, can I just slice and dice it? Because my god, these fanfic pages are...painful to read through.

(Side note: A common example of the use of this trope is "trauma does not go away", as far as I've seen.

Ex: While Izuku has several new friends who are all Pro Heroes, he still has significant self-esteem issues and his new friends have to explain that no, he's not at fault for Bakugo assaulting him and that Bakugo is a bully, not his friend. from Deku? I think he's some pro...

This is misuse, right? I've seen a lot of examples like this.)

I'm not clear on clean-up rules because I'm pretty new here to editing at tvtropes and I don't want to step on anyone's toes, so...can I just cut or should I check here first?

Yes, that's misuse.

Though I'm wondering if, if the examples are this common, maybe it could be its own trope, some sort of aesop about how trauma stays with you forever...

It'd be worth a shot in TLP.

It is pretty common. Like examples:

From Scarlet Lady: Unlike in canon where previous akumatizations are almost always ignored unless they are immediately relevant to the plot at hand, Mylène was left with serious trauma by the Stoneart incident. Ivan's monster costume gives her PTSD flashbacks, and the episode ends with the two discussing this.

Under What If's, a Life Is Strange Fan Work: A recurring plot element throughout the series is that while Chloe's life is generally far better than it was before the events of the game, the trauma she got from both falling out of contact with Max and learning of Rachel's relationship with Frank hasn't just disappeared. She struggles with being separated from Max for long periods of time, and there's an occasion early on in the relationship where she takes issue with Max going to watch movies with Warren; while he's dating Brooke, Chloe can't help but fear he'll try and make a move on Max, owing to her projecting her feelings over Rachel and Frank onto the current situation.

Under born of hell('s kitchen): In this fic, Peter Parker is an adopted child. He often wondered why his birth mother didn't want him, then the Parkers died in a car crash, then his Aunt May falls sick and die, which left him deep anxiety about Parental Abandonment. When his birth parents managed to obtain his custody back, Peter is still extremely insecure about their love for him, being physically clingy and trying to hide anything they might find distasteful (such as his growing superpowers).

...I was 'not' kidding when I said these were common. So if any of you want to start a TLP for it, there you go, examples ready for you. (Actually, since these are Fan Works, there could be a trope in that. Specific fanfic trope where they explore trauma that doesn't get explored in the original work, something like that?) It'd probably also need to be added to the Reality Ensues disambig. Permission to clean these examples off of SRO, though, since no such more appropriate trope page to move them to exists?

Mmm, perhaps move them to a sandbox for later use?